Hockey Widow wrote: That part scares me because we possibly have a goalie available this summer. I would like to think that MG shops and gets the best deal.

I think that the power brokers always have a line on what they want and what they would take for any player.

I think that once in a while a situation arises where you have to make a snap judgement and take what you have targeted rather than try and finagle a little bit more.

I think that there is that same snowballs chance in hell that even the stones under the stones won't get turned over in the possible dealing of a netminder.

I also think that Doc may be on to something, there were Canuck rumblings/rumours along the Nash line of thinking when Howson was making his efforts to trade Rick. Maybe Cody and something is going to move that way for Nash and something.

donlever wrote:I also think that Doc may be on to something, there were Canuck rumblings/rumours along the Nash line of thinking when Howson was making his efforts to trade Rick. Maybe Cody and something is going to move that way for Nash and something.

donlever wrote:...judging Kassian now or deeming him a lost cause/poor pick up is just plain wrong.

Completely agree.

Not only is he very young, but players of his ilk have a long history of taking a little longer.

Kassian looked great when he was running on adrenalin after the trade, then then started to look a bit gassed and I think he lost some confidence. In the end he looked a bit over whelmed, which is very common for young players.

The bottom line is that Zack has a very good combination of size and skill to go along with the pedigree of most top end prospects. He was a first rounder, and excellent jr player, and tore it up in the AHL. He is doing all of the things you want to see a 20 year old first rounder do.

He is an A1 prospect who should pan out, but hey, there is no sure bets with prospects so he might very well flop. I think the odds of that are fairly low but it could happen.

mathonwy wrote:Someone told GMMG that Kassian was worth trading for "at the trade deadline as opposed to in the summer" because he could provide both short term and long term benefits to the Nucks for the rest of the season and the playoffs. Probably a scout.

Probably. And I'm glad they did. Because Hodgson would've been exposed in the playoffs, and exposed badly. This would hurt his trade value, and we wouldn't be able to get Kassian.

Someone also told GMMG that our center depth was fine and we would be ok with parting ways with our stumpy playmaker rookie. Probably AV.

Gillis could probably figure this out on his own when he lined up Pahlsson, who is a better third line player than Hodgson.

Speaking about this season only, we took a major hit when we got rid of Coho and acquired Kassian. We lost a lot of forward options and in the playoffs, he played 5:37 in game 1, 6:00 in game 2, 3:55 in game 3, 3:42 in game 4 and he was sat in game 5.

I picked Sean Bergenheim as an example as I noted him playing for Florida, and remember his play for Tampa Bay in last years play offs. He seems to be playing mostly left wing on Florida’s second line with M Goc at center and M Samuelsson on right wing.

He and Booth are about the same age and have played about the same number of NHL games. His season’s numbers this year are not much different than Booth’s, but he has scored 12 goals in 19 playoff games. How many Canucks can claim that?

Bergenheim was a free agent last summer, and signed a 4 year deal with Florida for 11 million dollars. Presumably the Canucks could have signed him then if they had been interested. I doubt MG was trying to trade for him as MG said at the time of Booth’s trade he had been trying to get Booth for several months.

MG’s fascination for Booth would seem to fit with his offensive team concept, as opposed to getting a player like Bergenheim who is not likely to be a 30 goal scorer. Of course Booth is only 28 and has only been in the league for 6 years so maybe we haven’t seen his ceiling. So far he has not turned into James Neal (cap hit this year 2.875 million, next year 5 million) playing with either Kesler or the Sedins. But there is always next year.

donlever wrote:What GMMG said yesterday doesn't jive with this. I think he targeted a young player for the future. End of story.

I don't think they had any thoughts that he would provide short term benefits for the team. As a matter of fact GMMG talks about a kid who could have been playing junior last year (and was the year before) when discussing how raw he actually is.

The Hodgson for Kassian trade was definitely a futures for futures trade and that's what Gilis wanted. Gillis wasn't interested in trading Hodgson for a player who will only be here for a few years. But I don't think that meant Gillis didn't have the short term in mind. I think Gillis was merely referring to Kassian's young age when he made the "he can still play in juniors" comment. Gillis was alluding to the fact that Kassian is ahead of the curve right now and has lots of room and years to grow as a player.

mathonwy wrote:Tactically, the trade was a failure. In retrospect, we lost options on our special teams, we lost TOI and we lost all of the systems knowledge that the Nucks had invested in Coho. When Kassian came over, it looked like he was auditioning for preseason camp as opposed to preparing for the playoff stretch run.

I can't believe that GMMG didn't have any thoughts about the short term benefits for the team. It doesn't seem logical to me.

You're assuming Hodgson would get playing time under AV in the playoffs. Henrik and Kesler played over 20 minutes. Pahlsson got 14. Hodgson would likely have averaged somewhere between 4-12 minutes depending on the game. In this year's playoffs (with the idea this team would go deep) you're telling us you can't see that the team could use another big-bodied forward who has the skills to move up in the lineup over a small skilled center who hasn't been effective on the wing? The Canucks had Henrik, Kesler, Pahlsson, Lapierre, Ebbett, and Malhotra who are centers with Raymond having played there previously. This was a team makeup decision.

mathonwy wrote: The unfortunate part was the bad intel on Zack Kassian. Whoever provided that intel shit the bed royally and needs to be fired. I'm absolutely serious about this. Anyone have any ideas who the Nuck scout is on the east coast?

Kassian was a 2009 NHL draft pick in the first draft Gillis was fully prepared for. You don't think Gillis liked Kassian then? If you liked Kassian then, chances are you still like him. Eric Crawford is the director of professional scouting and he was the one who was instrumental in Booth being here. So my guess is that he had input?

Sorry mathonwy I know you're a nice guy and all but demanding that someone be fired less than two months after a 22 year-old got dealt for a 21 year-old is ridiculous. We're not talking about Patrick White here, Kassian has a similar pedigree to Hodgson and fills a real need on the team.

Canucks Army went through all of Hodgson's zone starts to figure out when Gillis decided he had enough with him and went to Vigneault with the plan to shelter him defensively so as to inflate his trade value.

There was a dramatic spike in his offensive zone starts on New Years Eve when they lost to LA. The game before, they played Anaheim and Hodgson scored. I'm guessing Winters harrassment of Gillis reached a tipping point after the Anaheim game.

In December, Hodgson's offensive zone starts were about 50%, in January, they jumped to over 80%. In January, he was the rookie of the month.

The same blog goes on to point out Vancouver's puck possession numbers cratered from 55% up to New Years to 47% from the point Hodgson was being featured until he was traded. They then returned to 58%.

In fact, the 25 games wherein Hodgson was sheltered represented some of the worst possession hockey the Canucks played on the year. They were 16-4-5 in that run, but were awful with the puck, and their average goal differential was worse (+42.6 per 82 during those 25 games to +54.7 during the rest), so they got a whole lot lucky.

The plan worked quite well, because the Canucks got the percentages from both Hodgson and the team, making him look so, so much better than he actually was.